‘Trying to kill me’: call played after murder verdict
Luke Costin, Miklos Bolza and Adelaide Lang |
A woman’s desperate triple-zero call the night she was killed at home has been made public after a jury found her former partner guilty of murder.
Tatiana “Tanya” Dokhotaru died in her 22nd-floor apartment in southwest Sydney on the night of May 26, 2023.
“Yes, hi. My ex-boyfriend’s here and he’s trying to kill me,” she told the operator during an 89-second call.
Danny Zayat was on Thursday found guilty of murder by majority verdict after a month-long jury trial in the NSW Supreme Court.
The triple-zero call was released by the court after the verdict, along with numerous exhibits including CCTV footage showing Zayat running from the building after the murder.
Phone videos of bruising on Ms Dokhotaru’s neck from an earlier attack by Zayat were also made public.
The jury heard he had stolen $130,000 cash his ex-girlfriend had kept stashed at home in a shoebox earned from her Instagram business selling imitation designer goods.
Zayat’s lawyer had claimed his texts to Ms Dokhotaru weeks before her death undermined allegations he badly beat her with the intention of ending her life.
Texts sent by the 30-year-old show he loved and cherished her, despite their volatile and dysfunctional relationship, the jury was told.
“I really wish things could have been different between us but I’m a f*** up … I don’t want to continue to drag you down with me like I have been,” Zayat texted her on May 6.
“You will always be my first proper love, and I don’t think I could ever love anyone else like I love you.”
Zayat’s barrister Madeleine Avenell SC argued there was a reasonable possibility Ms Dokhotaru’s fatal brain injury might have been a result of accidents rather than three injuries inflicted by Zayat.
The builder told reporters from Seven in an interview before he was charged with murder his ex had died from a drug overdose.
Thursday’s 11-1 verdict showed the jury sided with the Crown, which had extensively detailed Zayat’s prior violence and control towards his victim.
Ms Dokhotaru had confided in a friend her ex-partner had allegedly dragged her by the hair, spat on her repeatedly and threatened to kill her during a fight.
“I was fighting him off. I tried calling the cops but he said he’ll kill me if I do,” she wrote on April 13.
“It was absolute hell. My body is in shock. My mind is too.”
In the messages read out in court, Ms Dokhotaru confided she felt “so humiliated and violated” after the alleged assault and was struggling to process it.
Weeks later, she told her friend Zayat attacked her again after claiming she had been messaging his friend.
“He strangled me so bad, my throat is so bruised and swollen, I can barely breathe,” Ms Dokhotaru texted on May 1.
Ms Dokhotaru’s parents, who live in Canada, testified in October about Zayat’s regular abusive phone calls to their daughter during a visit in 2022.
Zayat was remanded in custody until his sentence on December 19.
Justice Desmond Fagan dismissed defence pleas to not move so quickly to sentence, despite hearing state-funded psychological and psychiatric reports would need to be prepared.
“Legal Aid must consider this promptly … and someone must prepare in anticipation of getting that grant,” he said.
Ms Dokhotaru’s parents were not in Australia for the verdicts.
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AAP
